Stepan Company is an American manufacturer of specialty chemicals headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Alfred C. Stepan, Jr.,[ About Us, Stepan Company. Accessed October 3, 2024.]
History
In its earliest days, Stepan Company was just Alfred C. Stepan Jr., who began distributing chemical products to control road dust on country roads in Illinois. His first location was a rented desk at Chicago’s North Pier Terminal.
Products
Stepan produces a wide array of industrial chemicals used as raw materials to make end products in the following industries: Agriculture, Antimicrobial, Beverages, Construction, Dietary Supplements, Emulsion Polymerization, Flavors, Food, Household, Institutional, and Industrial Cleaning, Industrial Products, Laundry and Cleaning, Nutrition, Nutritional Powders, Oilfield, Personal Care, Pharmaceutical, Phthalic Anhydride, and
Polyester polyol (for coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers, powder coating resins, and rigid foam).
Coca extraction
Coca-Cola includes a
coca leaf extract as an ingredient prepared by a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey.
[Benson, Drew. "Coca kick in drinks spurs export fears", The Washington Times, April 20, 2004. Accessed June 14, 2007. "Coke dropped cocaine from its recipe around 1900, but the secret formula still calls for a cocaine-free coca extract produced at a Stepan Co. factory in Maywood, N.J. Stepan buys about 100 metric tons of dried Peruvian coca leaves each year, said Marco Castillo, spokesman for Peru's state-owned National Coca Co."] The facility, which had been known as the Maywood Chemical Works, was purchased by Stepan in 1959.
[ History, Stepan Company. Accessed June 14, 2007.] The plant is the only commercial entity in the United States authorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to import coca leaves, which come primarily from
Peru via the National Coca Company. Approximately 100 metric tons of dried coca leaf are imported each year. The cocaine-free extract is sold to The Coca-Cola Company for use in soft drinks, while the
cocaine is sold to
Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical firm, for medicinal purposes.
[May, Clifford D. "How Coca-Cola Obtains Its Coca", The New York Times, July 1, 1988. Accessed April 11, 2008. "A Stepan laboratory in Maywood, N.J., is the nation's only legal commercial importer of coca leaves, which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent sold to The Coca-Cola Company, Stepan extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt Inc., a St. Louis pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify the product for medicinal use." See links for more information]
See also
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Legal status of cocaine
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National Coca Company
External links
